


Where we lie together.

by Wineabout



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cora has a baby, Curses, Descriptions of Gore and Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale doesn’t like to stay dead, Spoilers in the tags coming, Stiles learns about magic through the fic, Supernatural scavenger hunt, The Hale Pack - Freeform, pack bonds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wineabout/pseuds/Wineabout
Summary: When Peter dies, Stiles finds himself caught up in a tangle of his husband's unfinished business. Werewolf artifacts, Hale pack history and one really annoying Druid come together to lead Stiles deeper down the supernatural path.Stiles can't tell if this is Peter's goodbye from the grave, his way of helping him move on - or if the bastard really had just left him holding the bag.The bag glows by the way.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	Where we lie together.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is something I've had kicking around for a long time. See end notes for TWs please.

It’s quiet. Stiles isn’t wearing black. He’s not shoved into a suit with a collar too starched and too high for his throat. There’s no stream of grown-ups squeezing his shoulder; battering his unsteady body between their consoling touches.

This funeral hadn’t drawn a crowd.

For all that the wolf owned every room he walked into, could charm the pants off anyone, at the end of the day… Stiles was alone to drop a handful of dirt into a symbolic grave. A small rectangular hole in the ground, for an empty urn, in the Hale plot. The headstone is small compared to the heavy statue that bares the names lost in fire just a few feet away from it. It’s small, but Stiles thinks Peter would have liked it. Well, actually, he thinks Peter would have hated it with the uppity passion that came with words like ‘brat’ and ‘smartass.’

Stiles smooths his hand over the top before he bends to kiss the ice cold stone. Too cold for California. The inscription is in gold and the letters loop in the snobbiest font Stiles had been allowed to pick. Even he has to squint to read it.

Peter Stilinski-Hale

You should see the other guy

\---

_“You should see the other guy,” Peter laughed, smearing blood away from his mouth, freshly coughed up. His teeth were slick with it, his eyes too blue, but his hands were warm on Stiles’ face as they smoothed away the worry induced clench of his jaw._

_“I’m not kissing you for a week,” Stiles complained, feeling his stomach churn at the wet slip of Peter’s fingers on his skin. “So, you got him?”_

_“Of course, sweetheart.” Peter limped into their bathroom, taking off his wedding ring and letting it sit in a dish by the sink before he started stripping. His shirt clung; wet with viscera._

_“Are you done yet?” Stiles asked, because he always did. He gripped the doorframe and then bypassed Peter to turn the shower on warm. His fingers slipped when he cranked the faucet._

_The wolf grumbled at him, or maybe he’s just grumbling. Stiles can’t tell. Peter’s jeans hit the floor with the splud of wet denim._

_“Are you finished with your thesis?” Peter asked, smirking as Stiles scowled. He kissed Stiles’ hair despite a disgusted squawk and a gentle elbow to the ribs._

_“Almost,” Stiles sighed and stripped out of his clothes so he could join his husband in the hot water. He wrapped his arms around Peter’s sticky chest so he could lay his face between his shoulder blades._

_“Almost,” Peter echoed._

_It took a few minutes before the water swirling around their feet ran clear._

\---

“Son,” his father murmurs, too gently, from a few feet behind him, as far from the grave as he can politely get. His hands are in his pockets. He looks sad but Stiles knows it’s just because his son is grieving. It’s not for Peter.

“I know,” Stiles nods, thumbing the headstone one last time before he’s tucking his hands into Peter’s silly twill jacket. The satin lined pockets feel weird against his callouses. He’s got a plane to catch. Back to Seattle. Back to his half packed condo in a nice neighborhood. 

His throat is tight but he can’t cry, can’t speak either though. The ride back to his father’s house is silent except for the bump of the road they drive on. 

At least with his mother, with Allison, with Erica, Boyd - he’d seen the bodies. His last image of them was cold and dead. Brutal, bloody, pale. 

Peter was full of life when he’d left that morning, cheeks flushed from laughter before he’d given Stiles a kiss and turned the collar of his jacket up to step into the hall. Prepared for the wet Seattle weather. 

It was hard to reconcile that bright vitality with the dead weight in his chest. There’s empty space where Peter had been - their living bond shattered. Gone. For the first time in years Stiles was completely alone. 

Sometimes he can’t breathe for the lack of weight below his sternum. 

“Do you want to grab something to eat before you go?” His father asks as they walk into the house. 

Stiles blinks, turning his head to stare at a photo of his mom on the wall. Those photos had helped him when he was little to remember when she loved him the way he wanted her to. He reaches to take the picture off the nail stuck in the drywall. 

The frame is a little chipped from falling, and the glass is covered in a layer of grey - Stiles feels his belly tighten with the sudden urge to throw up. How long will it be until he lets Peter’s picture become dusty? 

“No,” Stiles says, quiet, flat. “I scheduled a ride - it’ll be here soon.” 

“Alright,” his father says and it’s awkward, he stands in the front hallway with his boots on and his hands shoved into his pockets. 

“If you see Derek, can you give him this?” Stiles takes an envelope out of his pocket with Peter’s pretty handwriting labeling the outside. He’s bitter about parting with it, bitter that he hadn’t found a letter of his own in Peter’s safe with the rest of his ‘If I die’ paperwork. 

“Sure, I’ll see that he gets it.” 

“Thanks,” Stiles nods, and sets the letter down on the table by the door. He thumbs the writing one last time before he puts his hands into his pockets. He sees it, almost from outside of himself, they mirror each other. There’s seven feet between them. There’s distance Stiles doesn’t remember. 

His father moves first, his face is creased, his hands are spreading as he crosses the space and grabs Stiles by the shoulders. “Kid,” his voice cracks, his hands are hot where they drag over his back and his grip is strong as he hugs. 

“Dad,” Stiles feels his voice go hoarse, wet, feels his face get hot and his eyes burn. There’s a ragged pain cutting through his chest as he leans in to the embrace and the numbness finally recedes. He almost misses it as he sobs. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop now. 

“I know,” his dad murmurs and Stiles hears the old grief in his tone. 

Stiles squeezes harshly and then feels his hands go limp as he cries until his phone chirps. His ride is outside. He needs to go. 

He wants to go. 

“I’ll call you,” Stiles promises as he steps away and rubs at his face. His nose is running, he sniffles and is surprised when his dad pulls out a tissue from his pocket for him. It’s one of those little travel packets. He tucks it into Stiles’ hand. 

“Anytime you want, kiddo. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” 

Stiles nods, blowing his nose and laughing as his dad offers to take the wet kleenex from him. It reminds him too much of being a kid. 

“I’m sure,” Stiles says as he grabs the backpack he’d brought along with him from beside the door and leaves. He doesn’t look back until he’s settled in the car, bag in his lap, twirling his wedding band around his finger as the car pulls off the curb. 

\---

_“What the hell do you mean, marry you?” Stiles squawked, his entire body jolting and jittery as he put his glass of champagne back on the table and looked from the beach to Peter. He should have known Hawaii was a trick - as if Peter would really just want to go on a vacation._

_“Marry me,” Peter repeated, brow ticking up like the question wasn’t that hard. Like he’s judging Stiles for struggling with it._

_“Did you really trap me on an island to propose?” Stiles tapped his fingers on the table while reaching up to adjust the girly sunhat on his head. Peter had bought it for him two hours earlier when his neck was starting to burn through the layers of sunblock._

_Peter made a low noise, leaning forward against the table to grab for his own glass of bubbly, he inspected it as if he hadn't drunk three glasses already. “It is a long swim back to Los Angeles,” he drawled. A stupid bastard smirk on his mouth._

_“You’re awful,” Stiles accused, but he felt the corners of his mouth aching from how sharply they'd turned up. “We’ve been fucking for two months and you want to get hitched.”_

_“Do you really think you could do better?”_

_Stiles made a face at that but his head tilted and his finger tipped off his sun hat in a conceding gesture. He was pretty awful too._

_“You got a prenup stashed in your luggage or what?” Stiles asked._

_“No prenup,” Peter said, leaning back again. He sipped his drink and gave Stiles a calculating look. An assessing look. It was his business face._

_“Huh,” Stiles sucked his teeth and drank more champagne. Refilling his own glass a moment later. “I’ve always wanted to be a blackwidow.”_

_Peter gave him a pretty ring with diamonds in the band, skinny, sat delicately on his finger. Stiles had never considered wearing an engagement ring before or owing diamonds but he liked the way it looked._

_It looked even better three months later when it’s soldered together with a matching wedding band after a quaint ceremony they didn’t tell anyone about._

\---

Turns out when a deeply rich werewolf dies - it takes more than a lawyer to settle the estate. 

A druid shows up on a Tuesday, just after Stiles has shown a couple through the condo for his realtor. Stiles has learned to pick the supernatural out of a crowd and he recognizes her before she opens her mouth. There’s just a vibe with druids. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, smiling kindly. She doesn’t look older than thirty, her hair tucked up in a bun. She’s got a messenger bag, a hoodie, and loafers. “I’m Cassie, I’m a liaison of Peter’s legal team - you know about the,” she gives him some wiggly fingers, “ _stuff_ stuff.” 

Stiles nods, staring at her in his condo hallway before he shrugs and lets her in. He has no idea what that means. 

“When you say liaison?” Stiles asks as he looks at her and her bag and watches her walk into the kitchen and take a seat like she’s been here dozens of times before. 

“Unofficial- official. You know werewolves, plenty of stuff that you can’t exactly declare on your taxes,” Cassie smiles at him and sets her bag on the table. She pulls out a folder, a few red velvet bags and a small envelope that gives a metallic thwack on the table top where she puts it. 

“Right,” Stiles sighs and takes a seat with her. “I’ve got another showing in twenty minutes - do you think this will take long?”

“Nah,” Cassie breezes as she slides everything over the table at him and waits. “I’m just here if you have questions, really.” 

“Right,” Stiles repeats. It’s awkward. The folder is lightly nudged toward him on the table top so he picks it up and cracks the seal. It’s a few pieces of paper, preserved by more than human methods and old. Very old. When Stiles squints at the ink he can see that it’s the Hale family tree. The start of it. He sees the very first Hale werewolf - William. Born 1246. 

There’s more lineage documentation. There’s notes about how the family branched. Names of knights. Names of cousins. Names of places and bites. 

Stiles wonders why this information has been stored so secretly until he finds a letter. His french is bad, his old french is even worse, but even he understands the first Hale was never human. The first Hale wasn’t bitten. The first Hale was blessed. The Hales are an original line. 

“I’d keep that somewhere safe,” Cassie says as she watches him lay out the preserved pieces on his table before he’s shuffling them back into the folder and staring at the cover. 

“Can you put it where Peter kept it, before?” Stiles croaks. 

Cassie sighs, touching her bun absently before she spreads her hands on the table in front of her beside her bag. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I was Peter’s secret keeper,” Cassie says, slow, it’s not quite unkind but Stiles hears the _but he’s dead_ anyway. 

“Right.”

“Open the rest of it,” she encourages.

Stiles does, slowly, methodically, terrified that he’ll some how damage the most sacred pieces of Peter left behind. One velvet bag holds a set of claws, they tinkle together. There’s bits of dust between them but they’re intact. 

“Are these..” Stiles can’t say it, he can’t bring himself to touch them either. 

“Peter’s? Oh no. Those are… well they’re William’s.” Cassie gestures to the folder. 

“The first Hale wolf. You’re telling me these are, like, eight hundred years old?” Stiles’ yelps, gingerly setting the velvet bag down and staring at it. 

“Werewolf claws don’t decay unless - well that doesn’t matter. And those are cursed anyway.”

“Cursed,” Stiles’ squeaks.

“Cursed - spelled - whatever. Blessed, maybe.” 

“Seems like that’s sort of an important distinction?” 

Cassie shrugs and smiles at him with that vague druid smile. She reaches out and slides the other bag and the small envelope toward him expectantly. 

The familiar urge to shove a druid out a window wells up, Stiles suppresses it with a grimace and a curl of his lip as he picks up the other velvet bag and peeks inside. It’s a rock. 

“This is...?” Stiles asks, lifting a brow and staring into the bag. It’s a plain rock. Just a piece of stone - smooth, like maybe it came from the bottom of a river. 

“It’s a rock.”

“Oh my fuck,” Stiles whispers to himself, closing his eyes and harshly pulling the drawstrings closed on the bag. “You guys really don’t like to share with the class, huh?”

“I get why Peter loved you,” she says, smiling. 

A sharp stabbing pain fills Stiles’ chest. It rocks him to his core, his hand coming up to rub over his sternum as he looks back at her and then finds he can’t maintain her gaze. He stares at the table top. Peter did love him. Peter loved him more than maybe anyone ever had or ever would again. 

“Here,” Cassie says and proceeds to open the final envelope for him. It’s a key, a normal looking key, shiny and silver. She sets it down in front of him and then moves to stand up. 

“Wait, what is this for?” Stiles asks, unable to stand yet, he rubs at his chest and puts his hand over the key. Denting his skin against the cold metal teeth. 

“Peter had secrets - even from his secret keeper,” she shrugs and leaves. No fanfare. No goodbye. 

The condo door swings shut behind her. 

\---

_“It’s a secret Peter, you’ll get your present after we have cake,” Stiles grunted. Laughing as the wolf nibbled the tip of his ear._

_“Secrets are just lies in disguise,” Peter purred. He had a hand wrapped around Stiles’ throat. His fingers were gentle, petting over fragile trachea._

_Stiles smiled, leaning his head back heavier into Peter’s shoulder. He could feel the wolf breathing behind him. Steady, warm, - at peace. They were sitting on the grass, staring out at a lake Stiles knew he’d never remember the name of, in California backwoods he’d never been to before._

_Peter sighed, deeply and dramatic, Stiles felt him tilt his head against him a bit better. Breath ghosting against his temple. Peter’s knee bent to frame Stiles’ thigh more firmly._

_“And you wouldn’t lie to me? Would you?”_

—-

Stiles picks up the silver key and thumbs the slight scuffs along the teeth. 

“But you would.”

**Author's Note:**

> TWs: Death and grief. 
> 
> This whole format and idea is an experiment to me. Let me know what y'all think of the flashback style.


End file.
